Nexus 5

[luddite]

Just bought a pristine second hand Nexus 5 and while I am an Android fan I find that it isn't a easy to use as the various Samsung phones that I own.
It's running 5.0 and I believed that it's rooted.
Can anyone explain what advantages a rooted phone has over non rooted???

 

[FoxKat]

The advantages are based on what you want your phone to do. Considering the greatest percentage of Android phones out there are completely stock, rooting isn't necessary to have a phone that performs all the functions those functions they require without rooting.

That said, rooting offers many potential advantages, some are minimal nuisance removals, others allow greater functionality. Sometimes that's greater functionality comes with some added risk or reduced reliability.

For instance, a common purpose for rooting is to gain access to the wireless tethering function without having to pay for it from your cellular carrier. Virtually all these phones are capable of tethering wirelessly (giving internet access to other devices by using your phone as a wireless access point), so it's not something that your cellular carrier is doing on their end to make this happen. Instead it's what they put in place on the phone to prevent it unless you pay a service fee to unlock it.

By rooting you gain access to the key in the system that prevents this function and allows you to circumvent the carrier's lock-down. The risk is that your carrier detects this by way of your spike in data usage and since it's a violation of your Terms Of Service (TOS), agreement.

Another reason for rooting is to remove or disable what is commonly called bloat, the applications that are pre-installed by the carrier on the phone that you buy, many of which, if not most of which you will never use and wouldn't want to. The problem with the bloat is that it takes up space on the phone and some of it runs in the background tying up the operating system and making the phone less responsive to other applications which all fight for the same share of the CPU.

Still other purposes are such as to install an Ad Blocker that will prevent most, if not all advertisements from popping up on your phone. There are Ad Blockers that work without root, but the ones that require root do a more complete job of preventing these nuisances.

The most aggressive purpose for having rooting capability is to be able to "flash", or in layman's terms install other versions of the operating system (ROMs), on to your phone. Some of these custom ROM versions may be slight tweaks to the stock version whereas others are signifigant or major overhauls and some, almost complete rebuild from the ground up by our most talented developers in the industry. Cyanogen is probably the most well known of all of them and he has his own version of the Android operating system, Clockworkmod that now can be flashed and runs on a large number of Android phones. And now he even has a custom manufactured phone, The Oppo N1 (Cyanogen Inc. Oppo N1 that is branded with his name and comes pre-installed with his custom Android Operating System.

By installing custom ROMs on your phone you can make the phone work completely differently than it was intended to, do things that perhaps the manufacturer and never even considered, make the phone more powerful and more responsive, and at the same time allow you to customize the phone to your particular likes.

There are lots of other ways rooting can provide greater flexibility and greater enjoyment for your device, but rooting and flashing custom ROMs comes with their own risks. Flashing can end badly and result in Bricking (causing to become non-functional), but the real question has to be in your own minds does the phone do what you needed to do now, or are you running into situations where you'd like it to do things it can't do and if so are you willing to take the risk of potentially violating your Terms Of Service agreement with your carrier or potentially doing damage to your phone and maybe even turning it into a big paper weight.

 

[FoxKat]

Let me add two things... One, you find this phone more difficult to use than the Samsung varieties of phones. This means you benefit from and enjoy the customizations that at least Samsung puts into their phones.

Second, your phone comes without all that bloat, running stock Android so many of the reasons for rooting are moot, however you do have one huge option. You could flash a custom ROM that gives you some, many, all or even more than you could ask for in customization and features.

So what I'm saying is if you are interested in doing this, you have THE phone to do it with in the Nexus.

 

[grenefroggie]

Another benefit to unlocking your the device's bootloader is being able to flash a custom recovery. This allows you to do nandroid backups. If you much up your phone, you can restore the backup and be relatively happy.

 

[FoxKat]

Another benefit to unlocking your the device's bootloader is being able to flash a custom recovery. This allows you to do nandroid backups. If you much up your phone, you can restore the backup and be relatively happy.

Yes, another great benefit of rooting. Having a backup of the system configured the way you want it is critical. However if you never root then a system reset is nearly as effective.

 

[grenefroggie]

Yes, another great benefit of rooting. Having a backup of the system configured the way you want it is critical. However if you never root then a system reset is nearly as effective.

There are plenty of apps out there that can backup data for you without root access. I love TiBu. There are so many apps out there that do the same thing with root access, but I have been using TiBu for so long it just feels natural.

 

[FoxKat]

There are plenty of apps out there that can backup data for you without root access. I love TiBu. There are so many apps out there that do the same thing with root access, but I have been using TiBu for so long it just feels natural.

More great advice.

 

[grenefroggie]

More great advice.

I could write a book!!

I have bricked phones, I have lost data, I have pulled largr quantities of hair out of my head. And I am still learning about Android on a daily basis.

Backup backup backup!! Apple makes it easy for their users, Android has no such built in function.

 

[luddite]

Thanks for the info guys.

As said Android is for people interested in phones, apple is for sheep.

I've had the Nexus for 2 days and have learned a lot but I'm still exploring.

 

[FoxKat]

Well then you're in the right place. We love exploring what our phones are capable of and how we can get the most from the user experience.